


The Edda of Tamsin

by kerithwyn



Category: Lost Girl
Genre: Drabble Collection, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-02-19
Updated: 2013-03-20
Packaged: 2017-11-28 21:26:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/679056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kerithwyn/pseuds/kerithwyn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A drabble collection focused around Tamsin, to be amended at whim.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Unkindness of Ravens

**Author's Note:**

> Apologies for the reshuffling--I decided to go ahead and make this the all-Tamsin set and moved the other character drabbles to another entry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Post 3x03. I'm just gonna keep looting the mythology until something breaks.

She'd told Bo true: They weren't supposed to remember their parasite-induced exploits. 

But Tamsin found the idea of lost time unacceptable, and she had extraordinary resources.

She arranged herself as comfortably as possible in her small bare room--what was earthly adornment, to one who had lived in Valhalla?--and closed her eyes.

" _Muninn,_ " she whispered on an exhaled breath, and the floodgates opened.

Tamsin saw it in her mind's eye, the memory returned clear. The way she'd kissed Bo, her easy happiness, the way she'd laughed. She'd inscribed her forbidden secrets, invited forsworn sympathy.

The succubus was dangerous, indeed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A vaguely related epigram, because it pleases me:
> 
> “Hey," said Shadow. "Huginn or Muninn, or whoever you are."  
> The bird turned, head tipped, suspiciously, on one side, and it stared at him with bright eyes.  
> "Say 'Nevermore,'" said Shadow.  
> "Fuck you," said the raven.  
> ― Neil Gaiman, _American Gods_


	2. Ravens and Wolves

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If Tamsin's truly a valkyrie, all the mythology's up for grabs.

Tamsin remembers running with wolves and ravens, symbols of her lost lord's dominion. It's fitting, now, that she stands with a woman of ravens at one shoulder and a man of wolves at the other.

So arbitrary, this division of dark and light. She has been a scream of battle on the wind; she has been a whisper of mercy to the dying. Both wolves and ravens feed on the corpses left behind by war and that, Tamsin knows, makes them closer kin than any disagreement over the treatment of mortals. 

So foolish, to be forced to choose between them.


	3. Shieldmaiden

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Post 3x06. This wasn't supposed to be the all-Tamsin drabble set, but if she keeps being so awesome, what else am I supposed to do?

The three of them look at her with pity, as if they believe she doesn't know what it is to feel friendship such as they have. To feel love.

Insulting. Condescending. Most of all, wrong.

Tamsin knew sisterhood stronger than blood, bound by oaths of steel and magic. She has had lovers, loved, been loved. She has felt these things more deeply than those mistakenly sympathetic eyes could imagine. 

She's lost them, too, to circumstances beyond her control and as a result of her own nature.

These soft creatures of light can take their misplaced compassion and choke on it.


	4. Pretender to the Throne of the Phantom Queen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Post 3x06.

This woman doesn’t deserve the title.

The Morrigan was (is) a goddess of battle. A terrifying spirit of the battlefields, kin to Tamsin’s own kind. Black bird, death omen, lady of strife.

Evony is a pale simpering shadow next to that memory. Seduction is all very well and fine, a perfectly acceptable tactic in either love or war. But she has no restraint, this “Morrigan.” She has no honor, this woman cloaked in borrowed raven’s finery. She pretends to a grandeur that she could never equal.

Tamsin lets her believe in her dominion, right up until the moment of defiance.


	5. Modern Art

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once you really start researching, the incongruity cannot be unseen.

Tamsin finds the images of her kind in mortal artwork frankly hilarious.

The improbable armor. The shining raiment, the flowing hair. The wings, for love of everything truly holy. Perhaps worst of all the shining white horses, adorned with ridiculous wings as well.

 _the horse of Gunnr sees fodder on the battlefield where twenty kings lie,_ Tamsin chants softly, because these humans have forgotten their own lore. She remembers her own steed, black as night, fangs sharper than a well-honed spear.

Humans use art to disguise the truth. Tamsin recalls the taste of blood between her teeth, and understands why.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Rök Stone (Sweden, dating to 835) uses "horse of Gunnr"--a valkyrie--as a kenning for wolves.


	6. Chooser

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Post-3x08. I'll need to say a lot more about this episode, but for now....

Of course Tamsin sees the death overshadowing Bo's face. It's clear in her sight, the apparition darkly manifest.

But then, that's her special "gift."

She knows this story. Valkyrie falls in love with the hero, hero dies. It's such a common trope that even humans sing about it. (Fuck Wagner, anyway.)

Knowing a thing and still not being able to avoid it? That's the definition of fate. But Tamsin also knows that fate can be averted with a sacrifice. Because it always, always comes down to blood. 

She kisses Bo anyway. Being a Chooser doesn't mean she has a choice.


	7. In Vino Veritas

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tamsin and Dyson, post 3x04.

Tamsin and Dyson go drinking. 

They're thrown out of one bar, then two, and by the third Dyson is loose enough for Tamsin to take him to their true destination. A place where light and dark meet, nowhere so polite as a ritual battle-site or a waystation. A place for forbidden trysts in shadowed corners, for trading artifacts of the light for the pleasure of the dark and vice versa. Where the lines cross and blur until only gray fae remain. 

Dyson's fun when he's not moping about Bo. Somehow, Tamsin can't pretend to disinterest as he talks about her.


	8. Mortal Veil

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Post 3x06. I'm still thinking a lot about Tamsin losing her hair after she-- what? Does a good deed for someone? Looses her power? Uses her power on someone not marked for death on the battlefield?

Tamsin hates--

No, that's a lie. She loves unveiling her true face, letting the mortal seeming drop away.

There's always a price to be paid. It had been decades since she last unleashed her power. That she loosed it for this succubus and her human pet....

More than a pet, which was perhaps the point. Bo and Kenzi have a true bond, like to that Tamsin used to know with her own sisters. Of all things worth fighting for, that was the most precious. Perhaps she was becoming sentimental in her age. 

Perhaps she's finally met someone worth fighting for.


	9. Origin Story

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Random musing. ...okay, this one is less a drabble than "speculation for really long fic crammed into 100 words."

Valkyries aren't born. They're chosen.

Of course at _some_ point each was born, in a previous life. At the end of that life, the hero was chosen by one of the valkyrjur and given a choice: spend eternity feasting in Valhalla or return to life as a valkyrie.

Fewer take that option than you’d think.

(What about the first valkyrie? Ask Odin. Just remember this is a god who sacrificed an eye for wisdom, and be prepared to pay a commensurate price.)

Thus Tamsin woke into her new life, whole and adult, with no memory preceding. A psychopomp needs none.


End file.
